Candy has a sweet taste, so it has been loved by many people, regardless of their age for a long time. Especially, young generations of infants to twenties are apt to select candies by their appearance i.e. shapes, colors, printed images rather than their taste. Recently, many attempts have been thus made to prepare candies having various images and peculiar shapes so as to arouse the devotees' interests and thereby improve the marketability of the products. Conventionally, pictures for a candy have been printed on its packing paper or attached thereto as a form of sticker. In general, it is not difficult to change the external shape of the candy, or to print simple images thereon. However, on considering the physical properties and the manufacturing process of candies, there exists a limit in enhancing the visual effects and the value of the candies by printing various colorful designs, e.g. characters, images, pictures, and the like (hereinafter referred to as “pictures”) therein and in making the pictures remain unchanged for a long time, even during ingesting the candy.
Typically, technologies for printing various pictures in a candy may be divided into two ways: one is to insert edible film into the candy and the other is to print the pictures directly onto the candy.
In the method of using edible film, it has problems of a high cost resulting from the addition of a process for manufacturing the film and from the waste disposal of the remaining film, and of feeling foreign matter in the mouth during ingestion. Especially, it has a problem which is incapable of showing distinct pictures in the candy since the film is contracted at a high temperature upon shaping the candy.
For printing pictures directly on a candy, a pad-printing technology is applied. The pad printing technology generally is comprised of preparing each color separation film and each etching plate, and then printing pictures with edible inks onto the candy. The conventional pad-printing technology has been used for printing pictures on a preformed resin such as a hard container, lid, and package for a product. Therefore, it is difficult to control the condition of the process and the combination of the edible ink composition for printing a picture onto the materials which are not completely cooled (e.g. as printed in the interior of a candy during the manufacturing process).
Generally, the quality of images is determined according to conditions for processing a candy. If the cooling time after first filling the candy mixture into the mold is too long, the workability becomes worse; also if the difference of temperature between the first filling and the second filling is too great, printed pictures and the distinctness becomes worse. Furthermore, conventional edible ink for candy is generally diluted with water, whereby various colorful pictures cannot be printed clearly and sharply. In the depositing technology, which is a typical process for manufacturing a candy for its advantage capable of using various molds, the pad printing method can be used for printing a simple picture into the candy, but it is not possible to print pictures, for example, an exquisite photograph of a high-resolution.
The present inventor has extensively studied how to distinctively print the pictures in the interior of the candy to the extent of the actual pictures. As a result, the present inventor has developed a method for preparing a candy by applying a pad printing technology and using edible ink compositions, by which various pictures may be expressed in the candy with clear shapes and high-resolution.